The Photographic and Life Exploits of Jacob Vorpahl.
Sometimes weekends work out exactly as planned, others they just kinda wander around and do their own thing. This past weekend was definitely the later and we have cancelled plans and rainchecks to thank for it. Of course, stuff happens to all of us, right? Eventually, you’re even the one doing the cancelling and giving the “hey we’ll do it again” speech. So what do you do when you suddenly have a Saturday night open and no desire to drum up new plans? You make lemonade. Wait… that didn’t come out right. It has something to do with lemons, I know that. Anyways, make lemonade (the real sugary kind).
And that’s what I did. I got the chance to do a ”photo shoot” with my beautiful wife, who is very sweet (AND the lemonade sugar joke comes full circle I’m an idiot). We’d been wanting to get a proper photo of her done so she could post it on a beta webpage she’s testing for her school’s website. So, I figured why not use the time to experiment a little and maybe have a happy accident if we nail one. Fortunately, we had a few keepers.
Before I even set anything up, I needed to figure out just what shots I wanted to get. I knew I wanted to do some head shots and get at least one full body shot with anything else being a bonus. All things considered, such as background and context of the shot being used, I decided I would tackle Zach Arias’s white seamless setup again. I tried once before, eventually finding some shortcomings in my set up that prevented me from creating the technique properly, but this time I made a small adjustment that, while not making it vastly easier, allowed me enough wiggle room to take the photos with the look I was after.
The first time around, the problem was that the paper and reflective tile board weren’t wide enough to keep stray light from coming onto the tile board surface and contaminating that solid white you’re looking for. Also, and I forgot to mention this, the paper I was using wasn’t long enough to do full body shots. Well, instead of seting up my DIY PVC background kit in the living room, I opted instead for my kitchen/dining area which has a bit more white in it. I also attached some white cloth material to the bottom of the paper to extend the seamless, blown out area, which actually ended up working, no or very little Photoshop necessary. Here is the setup:
I think I tweaked the output settings of the flashes after this point a little, maybe a stop at most, but I also used a lower shooting angle, so less of the ceiling was reflecting back down onto the white. Another issue I ran into was not having enough light stands, as you can see from my not-really-tall-enough chair stands. Preferably, I’d like to have these speedlights on stands so I could get them up higher. As you can see, there’s a spot in the upper left that doesn’t get enough light, and I couldn’t angle the speedlights any higher because they couldn’t get in the right position due to the weight of the barn doors attached to them. But, take what you can get, right?
After this, we experimented with lighting set ups (for better and worse) and content (umm… you’ll see). Unfortunately, in some of the photos, we have flat lighting due to a bad clamshell lighting ratio I should have picked up on, but I figure I’ll throw em up here as examples anyways. I should also point that my wife is known for at times having some pretty comical facial expressions. Those will be represented here as well. (I love you babe!)
For the Strobist’s here (fans and students of David Hobby’s teaching on off camera flash): the background was lit with 2 SB800s triggereed optically (that means a sensor on the flash picked up the light from other flashes causing it to go off), set to a ballpark of 2 stops over the key light. Otherwise the rest of the shots are a mix of clamshell and single umbrella lighting. If you click on the photo, the information is on the resulting Flickr page.
Now, this last one I take complete responsibility for. I asked her to do a Cousin It impression (from the Adam’s Family) and she obliged. I mean, it does make for some compelling photography, though, right? Right?
Due to an error with some code, all comments made one this article as of October 28th, 2009 were actually attributed to another article (the above links “Related Post” for “All wihte seamless background: lessons learned”. If you’d like to see them, check that article, otherwise, feel free to comment away (ML, your answer is on the other article, only because that’s where your questions were at. Enjoy!).